BY RENÉE ELTON MAUD LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXVIII Printed in Great Britain by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh    ...

A T last, I was on the eve of my departure for Russia! The dream of my twenty summers! For that great Russia, the country of my devoted grandmother, Baroness de Nicolay, who, however, was born in London, her father, Baron de Nicolay, being at the time attached to the Russian Embassy there. He subsequently became Russian Minister at Copenhagen, where on account of the many friendships he had formed in society and his deep attachment to the then King and Queen of Denmark and all their family—who h

T HE country from Petrograd to Viborg is for the most part like one perpetual garden, the train passes between what is literally a long series of villas and gardens in the midst of silver birch and pine-trees, broken occasionally by an evident attempt to create a new place; then succeeds again a planted solitude; and at last, after a journey of four hours, Viborg—a town of 30,000 inhabitants—is reached. That planted solitude has since those days become very much built over, I expect, as Finland

T HE Court spent the summer at the Palace of Peterhof. My aunt, Princess Cherwachidze, always rented a villa there on leaving her house at Petrograd. Most of the Grand Dukes had their palaces there also. Being only at a distance of about one hour by train from Petrograd, Peterhof with its numerous palaces and villas, situated in their lovely gardens, reminded me of the Riviera; by its brilliant society, both military and civil, Peterhof was indeed a delightful place to live in. There was a perpe

T HE first great important ceremony which I attended was the funeral of General Obroutcheff, a great dignitary of the Empire. The ceremony took place at La Laure, which is the ecclesiastical quarter of Petrograd and is an enormous monastery surrounded by walls and ditches full of water, a kind of fortified place—in fact, a town. It contains a large cemetery, beautiful gardens and no less than seven churches. The monks, of whom there are a great number, wear long and very wide black cassocks with

G REAT preparations now began for the baptism of the Tzarevitch. I shall never forget with what joy we heard the appointed number of guns fired announcing the glad tidings that a son and heir had been born to the Emperor and Empress. This happy event—July 30th, 1904—coincided with the Silver Wedding day of my uncle and aunt, my aunt being the recipient of many beautiful and valuable gifts from the Empress-Dowager, Grand Duchess Xenia and many others. My Uncle Cherwachidze presented me with a cha

L IFE at Michaelovka was very gay and delightful, in that beautiful palace belonging to Grand Duke Michael-Michaelovitch on the shore of the Baltic, and surrounded by every possible luxury amidst a gay and numerous suite. Michaelovka is situated at Strelna, quite near Peterhof. I stayed there with my uncle, General de Baranoff, and my aunt. My uncle was Grand Marshal of the Court of Grand Duke Michael-Michaelovitch, who always spent a great part of each summer there. The poor Grand Duke Michael-

W HILE I was at Michaelovka the Revolution was gaining ground every day. Russia was going through a critical period of her history and one felt as though one was living on a volcano—yet, in the end, an approximative degree of order came out of what looked like being chaos. An attempt against the Tzar’s life was really to be feared, and during a certain time the railway line from Peterhof to Petrograd by which he often travelled had a military guard, a close cordon of troops being placed below th

T HE following autumn proved a veritable time of enchantment for me. I spent it in the Caucasus, at Tiflis, with my good and kind aunt, Princess Cherwachidze, who owns a beautiful palace there. I specially admired its large white marble staircase. She also had a beautiful property near Soukhoum, called “Béthanie,” not very far from Tiflis, but in consequence of the disturbances at that time we were unable to go there. Her father, Baron Alexandre de Nicolay, had been the most popular Governor of

T IFLIS is a town of 100,000 inhabitants, built, as it were, at the bottom of a basin, surrounded by high mountains which in former days were wooded, now, however, absolutely bare owing to a terrible conflagration some years ago. The view of the snow-capped Mount Kasbeck is one of the most beautiful to be obtained in that superb range. The streets of the town were paved with rough cobbles placed in upright position making it almost impossible for pedestrians, so much so that for their convenienc

O N the 6th January 1905—Old Style—I made my entry into the most brilliant and exclusive society of Petrograd, and the occasion was for the annual blessing of the Neva on the feast of the Epiphany. I was invited to witness the ceremony at the Winter Palace in the quality of “distinguished foreigner.” A small pavilion shaped like an ancient circular Greek temple, with pillars, open on all sides, had been erected on the frozen waters of the river in front of the Palace. In the centre a hole was pi

I MET in society many who were much imbued with the idea of a constitution, and even of a Republic, a word which sounded like magic to them—magic, like something far off. They reminded me both by their advanced ideas and by their occasional indifference of the spirit about which I had often read: of the spirit that must have reigned at the Court of France on the eve of the Great Revolution. The Russian Empire, composed as it is of a number of races so diversely opposed to one another—neither sha

T HE Court left Petrograd for Tsarskoë-Celo in January 1905, not to return again for two years. The Empress lived in constant dread of some misfortune befalling the Emperor or the Tzarevitch, and had to endure the most cruel tortures in consequence. Not a day passed without there being some plot discovered, and once, even, an infernal machine was found connected by wires to the infant’s bed when he was but a few months old! The Empress, tall and still a beautiful woman, had, however, no longer t

A T that time motors were very rarely seen in Russia, the reason for this being, I suppose, that there were so few good roads; and when one did appear in the streets it immediately became an object of the utmost curiosity. Another striking feature in Petrograd was that there was not a closed cab to be seen, nothing but little open vehicles, which struck me as being an almost barbarous custom considering the extreme cold of the place. I asked my aunt the reason of this; she told me that the autho

T HE French Embassy welcomed me in the most charming way, and I retain the best remembrances of the moments spent in its salons . The Russians considered the Bompards bourgeois after the Montebellos, who had lived there en grands seigneurs , spending their large fortune, and dipping into it also a little. The Russians would have liked France to send them a marquis, a duke, a prince—considering that more flattering—but at least a “handle.” And, as the people who made this remark to me were consid

R USSIANS are very superstitious: for instance, they would never tell you that you are looking well, without tapping wood several times with the forefinger for fear that what they said should bring you bad luck. My Uncle de Baranoff, an intelligent and staid man, was a victim to this weakness, and I have sometimes seen him rise from his armchair and cross a large room to go and tap on a piece of wood which he considered suitable when having made a statement of this sort. In business matters Russ

O N her return to Petrograd for the winter, my Aunt Cherwachidze took up again her charitable rôle of confidante to her protégés, who overwhelmed her with visits, disputed for her favours or her kind looks, paid court to her, were jealous of each other, even hated each other. One of them, Baroness K..., a very pronounced type of the real Tartar, with waved black hair, great round black eyes, and lips outrageously reddened, came to see her very often. Her showy toilettes, red and yellow, a relic

F IVE or six years ago some Russian cousins of mine came for a short stay to Paris, and for the first time they pronounced before me the name of “Rasputin,” telling me of his disastrous influence at Court and particularly over the Empress. “He has persuaded her”—they told me—“that the Tzarevitch will die if she continues to live with the Emperor as his wife, his object being to assure to the enemies of the Romanoffs that their hope will be accomplished and that no other heir will be born to the

M ONSIEUR RADZIANKO, as is known, was elected President of the third Duma, and again of the fourth, that is to say, he was President at the moment of the Revolution. He married a Princess Galitzine, and was formerly in the Chevaliers-Gardes, considered the first Russian regiment. Adored by the peasants on his great estates, he was much in touch with the Zemstvo Party, the friend of the peasants. A great friend of Sir George Buchanan, our late Ambassador, his dream for his country was to have a m